The Surinam Disease. A Condition of Elephantiasis of 
the Banana caused by Ustilaginoidella oedipigera. 
BY 
Ed. ESSED, B.Sc. (Edin.). 
With Plate XXX. 
A LONG with the Panama disease, another plague was for a long time 
. known to occur, though rarely, on banana fields in Surinam, but, as 
in the case of the Panama disease, it only attracted attention when large 
areas were stocked with banana, and the damage done, although less serious 
than that caused by the U stilaginoidella musaeperda , was found to interfere 
with the output of the banana plantations. According to the manager of the 
United Fruit Co., Mr. Goldsmith Williams, this disease also made its appear- 
ance in Columbia, but, as here, it does not alarm the planters very much. 
The disease manifests itself by a very often enormous distension of the 
base of the stem — this is why it was called ‘ bigie footoe ’ or Elephantiasis. In 
some cases it may not be apparent, but generally a kind of sloughing takes 
place, caused by the transverse rupturing of the leaf-bases along the line of 
insertion. The leaves then wither ; the withering has nothing striking about 
it; it is the ordinary fading away of dying leaves. In scrutinizing them, 
small pegmatia (mycocecidia) may be found to have run out at the surface 
along the margins of injuries on the midrib and the blade, some having 
made their own way through the epidermis. The apex of the rhizome may 
remain growing for some time after the outer leaves are destroyed, but the 
young leaves do not fully develop, and become highly chlorotic. In this 
stage the entire stem-portion of the plant can be severed from the under- 
ground part by simply pushing it down ; it ruptures transversely along the 
bases of the leaves. When an attempt is made to push down a banana 
stem killed by Panama disease, it can only be caused to bend, but never to 
break down along the leaf-bases. This is an important difference in the 
external symptoms of the two diseases. 
Sections through the rhizome showed that the fungus attacks at first the 
parenchyma and the prosenchymatous cells of the peripheral upper region 
(see PI. XXX, Fig. i). So it was seen that the sloughing of the basal part was 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXV. No. XCVIIX. April, 1911.] 
